LGBTQ+ Journalists Group Withholds Awards, Keeps Entry Money

Journalists do their jobs without much fanfare or recognition. In those rare moments when their work is singled out and heralded, the notoriety can boost their profile, their bottom line and their opportunities to take on bigger challenges.

This story is about what happens when some out and proud LGBTQ+ journalists shoot for the stars and find out their work never even got to the launchpad.

On Thursday, the NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists announced the winners of its 2022 Excellence in Journalism Awards. It was cause for both celebration and consternation; Not because of any controversy over who was selected, but because the group made no mention of winners in four categories: Excellence in Blogging; HIV/AIDS; health/fitness; and, The Al Neuharth Award for Innovation in Investigative Journalism.

Those who paid fees, ranging from $15 to $40 for each entry, made it known in a Google Group of LGBTQ media folks that they were stumped as to why no winner had been announced in the categories in which they had hoped to win an award. Not just that; There was no mention of the category at all, in either the announcement email or online. It was if they had entered a contest that had been erased from existence.

What actually happened is that the organization’s judges didn’t consider their submissions in the Excellence in Blogging category worthy of an award, and nobody thought to mention it to the contenders.

Reached via email Friday morning, NLGJA executive director Adam Pawlus promised me he would investigate, and within an hour, one of the bloggers received an email from the NLGJA’s programs manager, revealing the judges’ decision in that category.

He also invited them to submit another entry next year.

“I find Daniel Garcia's explanation that somehow all nominees this year (including several former winners) had such a collapse in quality that they had no choice but to erase the category, to be beyond belief,” said activist and blogger Mark S. King, who in 2020 won both a GLAAD Media Award and was named by the NLGJA its LGBTQ Journalist of the Year. The HIV positive writer’s blog is My Fabulous Disease. “It is doubly insulting that NLGJA received submission fees from non-member bloggers who scrape by with little to no income from our sites and then tells us we're not good enough and come back next year and try our luck again.”

“Wow! That's just vicious,” said blogger Alvin McEwen of Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters. “This was very hurtful,” McEwen told me.

In 2017, McEwen won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Blog and is a former member of the NLGJA. “Charge us an entry fee then tell us that none of us was good enough to deserve award consideration. That’s not an accidental kick in the face. That's a deliberate scorning.

Pawlus himself followed up with an email to a blogger whose Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents received a second GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Blog last month. Pawlus said he “deeply apologized,” and further explained that the reason she and at least three other bloggers were not honored with an award, was in the event “no entries merit exceptional recognition.” In that email, he also revealed the three other categories in which the judges chose to deny entries any award.

“Let me make this perfectly clear to you and all,” Pawlus wrote. “On behalf of the association, we apologize to you for not communicating the judges' decisions in a clearer, more respectful and timely manner. We have a duty to communicate openly and honestly about our programs and awards.

“In this case, by failing to note that no awards were given in the Excellence in Blogging category in our press release, we failed in this duty,” wrote Pawlus. “Again, we deeply apologize for our mistake and regret any confusion or hurt we may have caused you and other applicants. We have updated this information in the release on our website and we will make sure that this does not happen again in the future. We get it.”

But as far as is known, what the bloggers aren’t getting is their money back.

“It's still extremely hurtful for them to do this,” said McEwen. “They could have at least refunded our monies. They don't think our work is good enough to merit but have no problem accepting our money. Some of us don't have money to spare. And, speaking for myself, I participate in things like this to help get my work more attention. This sends a message to me that it's all a clique and no matter how earnest my efforts are or how much work I put in, in not good enough to be in their 'circle.' It's like charging someone for slapping them across the face.”

As of press time, Pawlus did not respond to my invitation to respond to these comments or to explain further, but in the email to the Pittsburgh blogger, he wrote this, “to help clarify” the judges’ decisions:

“The association calls upon a diverse ad hoc committee of seasoned journalism professionals to review each submission in a category. This third party of judges is a panel of true peers consisting of previous winners, members and professionals from other journalism organizations and institutions. The judging process is extremely rigorous and judges reserve the right to withhold awards in any category if they determine that no entries merit exceptional recognition.”

Details of the snub first emerged in an online conversation. Michael Rogers is the vice chair and a partner in Raw Story Media, publisher of the online news site RawStory.com.

"It's absolutely pathetic,” Rogers told me. “Despite limited resources, these journalists have been leaders in topics from the murders of transgender women to exposure of the right wing's attacks on LGBTQ Americans. I wonder, just how many citizen journalists are involved in the selection of this award? No other journalists have done the work of these nominees. It's an insult to them and calls into question the very mission of NLGJA.”

“I've won the blog category a few times, and was NLGJA's LGBTQ Journalist of the Year in 2020,” King said, “and this erasure of the entire blog category makes me embarrassed of my association with them. At best, this was handled terribly. What appears more likely is that grassroots bloggers don't have the marquee value of the big names and outlets being honored. And yes, I submitted in this category this year.”

For full disclosure, it should be noted that in this category, members of the organization do not have to pay any entry fee; Also, although I did not submit my work for an award this year, I am a lifetime member of the NLGJA, as well as a GLAAD Media Award winner.

This is not the first time the NLGJA has made headlines for all the wrong reasons. In 2018, the nonprofit group apologized for an inappropriate quip by an out Ohio weatherman. He welcomed attendees to the closing reception of its Palm Springs gathering, sponsored by Fox News, by calling them, “ladies and gentlemen, things and its.”

At the time, NLGJA president Sharif Durhams told the Washington Post he was mortified by the incident and promised the organization would work to do better by its members and supporters.

Pawlus echoed that promise on Friday in his emailed comments about the awards announcement, saying, “We will do better in the future.” His email also indicated he was away on vacation, and so that may explain why there was no response to my question as to whether the NLGJA would be refunding the entry fees bloggers paid to have their entries considered for awards as of press time.

But while we wait, the vice chair of Raw Story had more to say about the group.

"NLGJA's lack of recognition is proof of the organization's inability to recognize the true diversity of the nominees' work,” said Rogers. “Reporters who cover transgender issues are virtually non existent. Few reporters cover attacks by the religious right on LGBTQ communities of color, and almost no organizations are regularly covering LGBTQ parenting. This decision shows a lack of interest in the diversity of the citizen journalist community. All this while the organization takes money from FOX Corporation, the owners of FOX News."

This story was updated on Saturday, June 25 at 11 p.m. EDT. Bookmark this link if you’re interested in reading further developments as they happen.